#Bernie Sanders Is Making Strategic Changes

[mariacallous]

In a thought-provoking essay for the New York Times, Sen. Bernie Sanders advocated for conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel on policy changes. He outlined several steps, ranging from ending the conflict in Gaza to Israel’s engagement in comprehensive peace talks for a two-state solution post-conflict. Acknowledging past inadequacies in the U.S. approach, Sanders emphasized the need for a shift from goodwill efforts to more impactful strategies. “Obviously, we did not do enough. Now we must recommit to this effort. The stakes are just too high to give up,” he wrote.

While Sanders’s initiative has predictably faced criticism from Israel’s supporters, it’s crucial to view it in the broader context of Israel’s internal struggles. This proposal, far from being harmful to Israel, could serve as a catalyst for addressing Israel’s deep-seated political challenges. Struggling with a deeply paralyzed political system, Israel is hampered in making critical decisions on its own. In these circumstances, the support and intervention of its allies could prove not just beneficial, but perhaps crucial for Israel.

Israel’s strategy in the recent Gaza conflict has been marked by a lack of clear, achievable objectives, with the primary aim being to topple the Hamas regime and dismantle its military capabilities. This goal, one of the most ambitious for a democracy since World War II, was shrouded in ambiguity. The Israeli government has quietly revised its war goals repeatedly. Such frequent revisions reflect a deeper issue: Heightened domestic disagreement leads to inflated public expectations, further complicating the definition of a concrete exit plan or success criteria. Caught in this cycle, Israel faces the peril of an unending conflict. Its paralyzed political system not only struggles to set realistic goals but also to identify the right moment to step back. This paralysis cripples Israel’s immediate decision-making and casts a long shadow over its future strategic direction, significantly impacting its regional and international standing. After eight weeks of intense conflict, Israel is far from achieving these initial goals.

The Israeli government has also failed to articulate a clear political vision for what follows the war. Currently, the conflict is being directed more by military imperatives than by a cohesive political strategy. Should Israel aim to reoccupy Gaza, acting as the primary force in place of Hamas, the war might continue for months until the last enemy combatant surrenders. On the other hand, if Israel were to support a two-state solution, allowing the Palestinian Authority (PA) to govern Gaza again, it would help end the conflict more quickly. This would not only assist the PA in rehabilitating Gaza but also enhance its legitimacy among Palestinians in general, and those in Gaza in particular, portraying the PA as a savior from Israel’s military actions. However, Israel’s inability to make decisive choices due to its political paralysis is a significant impediment.

Contrary to what Sanders implies, the root of Israel’s paralysis extends beyond the influence of right-wing extremists in the cabinet. This situation is further complicated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vested interest in prolonging the conflict in order to remain in office. As long as the fighting continues, Israelis appear ready to put off a political reckoning with the Israeli leader.

More fundamentally, two moderating forces are being stifled. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has historically acted as a counterbalance to hawkish agendas—especially under previous Netanyahu administrations—with senior officers showing a keen awareness of the limits of military power. But Hamas’s surprise attack on Oct. 7 damaged the IDF’s reputation. In response to this humiliation, the IDF has shifted toward showcasing military might, frequently neglecting the need for caution and restraint. This aggressive posture has led to an unprecedented increase in civilian casualties in Gaza, risking Israel’s international legitimacy. Such an aggressive approach, diverging from the IDF’s traditionally more restraining role, signals a worrying trend in the context of Israeli domestic and foreign policy.

As the IDF grapples with these challenges, a shift is occurring within the Israeli political landscape as well. During previous conflicts, as Israelis rallied around their government, people on the political left often found a way to critique the war and offer alternatives. Those voices are now mostly muted for a host of reasons. The Hamas attack was so heinous that even Israeli supporters of Palestinian rights are finding it hard to stand against the war. Also, the right has accused the center-left camp of eroding the country’s deterrence before the war with mass protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reform program. The protests included a refusal by air force pilots and others to volunteer for reserve duty (though the protesters did report for duty once the war began). Faced with these accusations, the center-left has been more reluctant than usual to speak up and propose ways to end the war.

This situation has fostered a narrative wherein anything but all-out war in Gaza is viewed as untenable. The argument for a forceful response following Hamas’s attack—justified as it was—overshadowed any strategic rationale behind Israel’s specific military maneuvers. Consequently, the center-left has not only overlooked the vital question of the day after, but also appears disengaged from the challenges of rebuilding Gaza in the post-conflict period. Being an antiwar activist in Israel these days amounts to advocating for pauses in the war to allow for prisoner exchanges, in contrast to the rightist preference for prioritizing the smashing of Hamas. This stance falls short of offering a substantive alternative to the prevailing approach to the war.

The paucity of alternative perspectives in Israel is exacerbated by government measures that limit free speech. Antiwar demonstrations have been restricted. Members of the Arab minority are increasingly feeling intimidated in public spaces. In politics, vacuums are rare. With the absence of a clear exit strategy and a vision for future relations with Gaza, public opinion is shifting. Polls indicate growing support for the idea of rebuilding Jewish settlements in Gaza after the war. This is a messianic fantasy of the right wing that advocates for relentless revenge in Gaza. Conversely, U.S. President Joe Biden’s proposal to empower the PA to govern Gaza after the war has not sparked the kind of public debate it warrants.

In the context of Israel’s internal paralysis, the nation cannot make the crucial decisions necessary to restore its security. For Biden to effectively guide Israel away from a potentially self-destructive path and avert a broader regional crisis, his administration needs to be more assertive. Sanders’s agenda, driven by the belief that the “stakes are just too high to give up,” could bolster the administration’s efforts to achieve this aim. Historical precedents, including the George H.W. Bush administration’s refusal in 1991 to approve $10 billion in loan guarantees for Israel unless it froze settlement construction, demonstrate the potential effectiveness of U.S. pressure. Historically, this form of external influence has helped Israel’s center-left challenge government policies. It played a pivotal role in the ascension of Yitzhak Rabin’s moderate government in 1992. Imposing such pressures today could inspire the center-left to champion a more dovish agenda. This camp, significantly composed of the middle class, might be galvanized into action as the costs of the conflict escalate—and the United States is no longer promising to finance it.

In short, a more assertive American role could be the key to unlocking Israel’s political impasse, paving the way for a more stable and secure future in the region. Now is the time for those who care about Israel to demonstrate their commitment in a constructive manner.

[eelhound]

"Republicans think strategically. Trump’s supporters responded to his 2020 loss by trying to replace neutral election officials with ideological allies, because (while utterly unprincipled) this is a rational answer to the question: 'Who has the power to give us what we want?' After the 1960s and early ‘70s saw the unprecedented expansion of rights to oppressed groups, the right realized they needed to fight back if the traditional social order was to survive. The conservative legal movement worked for decades to get Roe overturned. They formed branches of the 'Federalist Society' at law schools, cultivating rising conservative lawyers and judges. (There was no serious left equivalent, and I remember at law school that Federalist Society events were always well-attended because they had delicious food. I only ever showed up to take the fascists’ food and leave.) As the Wall Street Journal reports: 

By the time Republicans regained the appointment power under President George W. Bush, the conservative legal movement had become a mature pillar of the legal establishment. The Federalist Society has grown from its law-school origins into a Washington-headquartered nonprofit with more than 60,000 members and annual revenue of more than $22 million…

They knew what they were doing. In the domain of reproductive rights, they were laser-focused on revoking the constitutional right to an abortion over the objections of the American public. (In other domains, they are similarly focused on destroying the regulatory state and ending all restrictions on corporate power.) They knew that the judiciary is a great place to get things done, because at the top it is almost all-powerful (the Supreme Court can declare any law unconstitutional and prevent its enforcement) and judges are hard to hold accountable through the political process. It is designed to be a counter-majoritarian branch of government, so if you want policies that the majority of Americans oppose, stuffing the courts is extremely useful.

Progressive Democrats need to learn from this. They need to start asking the basic strategic question: 'What do I want and what would actually get it for me?' Political actions should be taken on the basis of their likely consequences, not on the basis of whether they embody our noblest aspirations. One reason I (like Bernie Sanders) felt duty-bound to spend the general election in 2016 telling fellow leftists to vote for Hillary Clinton, whom I completely despised, was that it was obvious that a Trump victory could produce catastrophic consequences. He was pledging to take away the right to an abortion, and that’s precisely what he did. 

The present Democratic leadership claims to be pro-choice, but they do not act like someone who was pro-choice would actually act, because they do not take the steps necessary to safeguard the right to an abortion. (Likewise, the Democrats in Congress are effectively climate change deniers because their support for stopping climate change is purely rhetorical.) On the campaign trail, Barack Obama duped reproductive rights activists into thinking he cared about their cause, then ditched the fight for abortion protections immediately upon taking office:

Barack Obama, 2008: 'The first thing I’ll do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.' (The video of this moment is so sad, because the Planned Parenthood activists watching cheer with delight and hope, not knowing they will soon be ruthlessly betrayed.) 

Barack Obama, 2009: 'The Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority.'

Nancy Pelosi, while rhetorically expressing support for abortion rights, was just recently helping an anti-abortion Democrat stay in office and defeat a pro-choice challenger, and has explicitly repudiated efforts to make the Democratic Party uniformly pro-choice. All of which makes the immediate press releases and fundraising emails from top Democrats about the threat to abortion rights ring rather hollow. Words, words, words. Where are the deeds? Before the decision was handed down, choice activists were already furious with the Biden administration for doing nothing to protect abortion rights and having no plan in place to deal with the overturning of Roe. Now Biden is already reiterating his unwillingness to do anything to tame the illegitimate power of the Supreme Court. What we can expect is more lamenting of the right’s terrible deeds without any plan for combating them. 

A sign that at least someone in the party understands the basics of strategy came from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who in a long Twitter thread lambasted fellow Democrats for the pattern of 'demoralizing, losing, unfocused nonsense' like saying 'just go vote' and 'give us $6 to win.' 'The President [and Democratic] leaders can no longer get away with familiar tactics of ‘committees’ and ‘studies’ to avoid tackling our crises head-on anymore.' AOC laid out explicit actions she wants taken (opening abortion clinics on federal lands, expanding federal access to abortion pills, restraining the power of the court and expanding the Supreme Court), and said that when Democrats do call on people to vote for them, they need to explain exactly what they intend to do:

For the moments when we do insist on elections, we must be precise with what we need and we will do with that power. … Dem leaders must tell voters the plan. … What’s the actual need? Which specific seats are we focused on? What votes do we need and where. And what’s the return? What is Biden/Congress actually willing [and] able to do at 52/60 seats? … So lt’s wake up everybody! … If you don’t like what I’ve laid out here, then please present your plan instead of little ‘why we can’t lists! Let’s cut the handwringing and get moving. 

There are plenty of fair complaints about AOC among leftists, but this is clearly a breath of fresh air and the beginning of the right approach. We must start, as the right does, with the question of power. What do we want and what would we have to do to get it? This will be difficult. But the alternative — wishing for an outcome but letting the right outmaneuver us at every turn, because we are too committed to Principles and Norms to attempt to defeat them — is suicidal and will result in the stripping away of more and more constitutional rights."

- Nathan J. Robinson, from "The Right Wins Because They Understand Power." Current Affairs, 26 June 2022.

#nathan j. robinson #quote #quotations #american politics #political organizing #democratic socialism #roe v wade #abortion #activism #political power #realpolitik #scotus #democratic party #republican party #right wing extremism #federalist society #fascism #dobbs v. jackson women’s health organization

[theculturedmarxist]

Joe Biden is an unpopular candidate for president, but he is still running well ahead of the opposition. Fortunately, there is a socialist running against him who may be able to consolidate the anti-Biden vote and pose a serious challenge to his candidacy much like Bernie Sanders did to Hillary Clinton in 2016. There is every reason to believe that he can do this if opponents of capitalism rally around his campaign and work to bring the rest of Biden’s opposition into the fold. Unfortunately, however, our socialist candidate faces multiple capitalist challengers who are trying to compete for the socialist vote by positioning themselves as vague radicals — and an ostensibly radical network of online activists and media figures who are willing to play along and unwilling to adopt an adversarial position against his opponents.

This, of course, is the problem that leftists faced throughout the 2020 Democratic primaries. Bernie Sanders, a self-identified socialist, was from the day he announced the logical rallying point for a left-flank challenge — not just to Biden, but to the entire capitalist system. But Sanders was swarmed by a liberal opponents like Elizabeth Warren who positioned themselves as radicals and prevented his campaign from building the early momentum it needed to get over the establishment’s Super Tuesday speedbump at the end. And those candidates were abetted, of course, by a whole constellation of activists and pundits (like Sean McElwee, for example) who argued against rallying around Sanders and against a competitive, critical stance towards his opponents.

If there’s one lesson socialists should have taken from 2020, it’s that hedging our bets with progressive capitalist candidates is a guaranteed lose. And yet that is exactly what ostensibly Marianne Williamson and RFK Jr. are us to do by running against actual socialist candidate Cornel West. West’s campaign had such a terrible launch in its association with the reactionary People’s Party Nick Brana front group that the overwhelming majority of socialists, including yours truly, rightly rejected it. But almost immediately, West left Brana’s group and declared his candidacy for the Green Party’s nomination instead. If you are an opponent of capitalism, the obvious thing to do at this point is to rally around the candidate who also opposes capitalism and treat Williamson and RFK as the capitalist Democrats that they are. Look, it’s so easy I’ll even make a flowchart:

That any of this has to be spelled out after what was, for socialists, one of the most vivid and catastrophic learning experiences in modern electoral history tempts me to spend a lot more time gaming and a lot less time doing whatever this is. As far as I can tell there are only two reasons you could possibly object to this.

First, because you think that, in the arena of presidential politics, the Democratic Party is the only possible vehicle for progress.This is a popular strategic position, albeit one I disagree with. It’s shared by everyone from Joe Biden to AOC to Bernie Sanders. It is, however, a funny rationale to hear from Williamson / RFK supporters who have long at pains to distance themselves from Democratic entryists and reformists, and who have abandoned principled opposition to capitalism for some vague opposition to “the establishment” or “the system” or whatever. If you won’t stand up to capitalism or the duopoly what then what exactly is this system you have a problem with?

Second: because you don’t oppose capitalism. This is a popular position too! Elizabeth Warren was a capitalist who positioned herself as a radical proponent of “big structural change”, and her supporters spent a good year positioning themselves as deluded deadenders for one of the more embarrassing campaigns in recent history. Hell, Joe Biden also loves capitalism. So is this a Communists for Hickenlooper deal where we’re supposed to back a liberal Democrat because he’s taken a decent position on one or two issues to try to distinguish himself from the pack?

Socialists have a fight ahead of us. It’s going to be hard for West to recover from a bad campaign launch. It’s going to be hard to prevent The People’s Party from using him to further their own ambitions. It’s going to be hard to prevent Williamson and RFK from shepherding opposition to Biden back into capitalist Democratic politics. And it’s going to be hard, as always, to overcome Democratic loyalism and lesser-evilism out among people who are rightly worried about a Republican win. There’s still time for better candidates to announce, and if we get a better socialist I think there’ll be plenty of room to revisit our support. But for now, Cornel West’s run with the Green Party is the only game in town.

#cornel west #2024 presidential election #democrats #lesser evilism #green party

[thesheel]

Kamala Harris' nomination as the vice-presidential candidate by the Democrats was hailed as a historic decision. There are many reasons for this nomination to be termed as historic. Many people call it historic because of the ethnic background of Harris. Kamala Harris is not only the first Black American or Asian American to be nominated for this position, but she is also an able leader who could serve the interest of the American people and can work to making America great again.  This article will discuss the Kamala Harris policies that classify Harris as the leader of ordinary Americans. Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate not only to attract Black American voters but also on merit. Kamala Harris policies hold a high rating among lawmakers and leaders because of Kamala's outspoken attitude about civil rights and her determination to the duty. Not only this but Kamala Harris policies are also bound to put America on the path of growth and prosperity which has been lost largely in recent years. No other candidate was able to score as high on Biden campaign's core criteria for a running mate, as did Harris. Biden, after choosing Harris, described Harris as a fearless fighter and the finest public servant of the country. Now let us move toward the policies of Kamala Harris. [caption id="attachment_3759" align="aligncenter" width="813"] Photo Source credit to www.sfchronicle.com[/caption] Kamala Harris policies in the Healthcare sector Healthcare has always been a significant issue for Americans, and it has become even more crucial in the recent spread of COVID-19.  Kamala Harris policies regarding healthcare are somewhat mixed. Harris was one of those Democrats who co-sponsored the Medicare for all Legislation, presented by Senator Bernie Sanders. Kamala Harris attracted huge criticism for her support of the single health care program that would eliminate insurance in 2019. In the same year, the California Senator came up with a different healthcare program that was termed as “KamalaCare,” The so-called KamalaCare aimed at expanding Medicare without eliminating insurance. Harris's support for Bernie Sanders' bill was the most damaging issue for her presidential race during the Democratic primary. Harris also advocated the investment in the nation's maternal mortality crisis. According to her, Black women are three times more likely to die of pregnancy-related issues as compared to white women. She has also been active to emphasize support for the unprivileged communities during the surge of COVID-19.   Harris' Climate Change policy- driven by Green New Deal Climate change is one of the most serious threats faced by the world, even more, serious than COVID-19. In many European countries, voters are attracted by politicians by their stance on climate change and other related issues. Senator Kamala Harris policies regarding climate have always been different than others and she is too vocal about this existential threat. She is also a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. For those who may not know, Green New Deal is a policy paper that advocates the strategic overhauling of the United States economy to tackle climate change. Vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris policy ambition regarding climate change has forced her to introduce a climate equity bill. This bill aims to explore the effects of climate change and environmental laws on the low-income population. It also advocates the establishment of a Climate and Environmental Justice Accountability Office that will ensure that the low-income communities get benefits from environmental laws. Senator Harris has also outlined a $10 trillion investment plan in her manifesto that will result in making the United States a zero-carbon emitting country by 2045.   Foreign Policy- focused on making friends across the globe The foreign policy defines the strategy of a country in maintaining its relations with countries around

the world. The important geopolitical and economic position of the United States makes foreign policy an important thing to be considered. Kamala Harris policies with respect to the foreign relations with the world are very similar to those of Joe Biden and are considered to be favorable for the country and strongly oppose the foreign policy of President Trump. Harris considers America's allies and partners as important for combating global challenges such as climate change and extremism. Diplomacy, human rights, and democratic values are her priorities. Senator Harris is an outspoken critic of autocratic regimes such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, a backer of Israel, and is expected to continue her support for the Jewish nation. Many experts believe that Kamala Harris could prove to be very helpful in countering external threats to America. She could even develop a place for herself independent of Biden if she gets a future chance in the White House.   [caption id="attachment_3761" align="aligncenter" width="757"] Photo Source Credit to AP news agency[/caption]   Racial Injustice: Pursuance of the senator to end discrimination based on color In current times, systematic racism has become one of the prime issues of the country. Kamala Harris policies concerning this menace are believed to be the warrior which could save the country from this parasite. She has always been vocal about this issue and has always come forward to demand justice for those who face discrimination on the base of their race, sex, color, or ethnicity. Harris' stance on systematic racism and social injustice date back even before she entered politics. She believes that the issue of systematic racism has plagued this country and has never been addressed in the way it should have been. Many believe that if Harris gets the chance to serve as the vice president of the country, she could at least lay the foundation of a system that will eventually kill this virus.   Police Reforms: Harris ambition to make law equal for all Like foreign policy, Harris and Biden share the same opinion on police reforms also. Senator Harris is the only Black woman in the Senate who does not go with the opinion of the majority of Democrats to defund the police. Rather than openly talking about police reforms, Harris has always stressed on reimagining the public safety structure. She believes that defunding the police will not solve the issue; it is a temporary solution. Harris tends to treat the problem from its root. Harris has served as a prosecutor and top cop, so she has the skills and knowledge that will help to restructure the police department. The California senator has always been tough on crimes, yet holds progressive opinions on it. During her presidential campaign, Kamala Harris policies for law reforms were criticized by many as Harris vowed to put an end to private prisons and the death penalty. She has also been a supporter of legalizing marijuana and a strict opponent of mandatory minimum sentences. Harris sees these proposals as a part of a larger plan that will ultimately develop a reformed structure of the police department.   Immigration and opportunities for those who deserve it Donald Trump, after coming into the White House, has taken strict steps on immigration and has alienated the United States from the world. Senator Harris has dealt with the issue of immigration very aggressively. She had been a hard-nosed interrogator of the Trump administration on the immigration policy. During her presidential campaign, Harris talked about using the executive power to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program initiated by the Obama government. Immigration is the issue that Kamala differs on with even her own party members. Harris herself is a child of immigrant parents, understands the issue very well and so Kamala Harris policies regarding this are expected to be lenient. She wan

ts to clear the path for those who see America as a land of opportunity and land where dreams come true. Harris strongly opposed her party on the decision giving billions of dollars to the Trump administration to build a border wall alongside the border of Mexico. She also tends to offer a path of citizenship to millions of undocumented immigrants living in the country.   Economy to create jobs and welfare in the USA The economy is the biggest factor that decides the eligibility of a candidate. During her presidential campaign, Harris outlined an ambitious economic policy. Kamala Harris policies for economic growth are based on 25 major issues ranging from affordable housing to climate change. The California Senator proposed a $3 trillion plan to reduce the taxes for the middle and working classes. She had also emphasized the economic issue that is directly related to people of color. Harris is fully aware of the factor that the current situation requires dramatic steps to boost the pandemic-stricken economy. A Biden-Harris administration is believed to be the only way that the country could bring back the economy on the track that it has lost due to the pandemic. Furthermore, the background and experience of Harris will help to focus on the gender-related issues of the economy. Harris believes that women should get equal opportunities as men to contribute to developing the economy of the country. This also defines her stance on women's rights.   Other miscellaneous Progressive issues Harris has always attracted support from different progressive movements for her support of issues such as LGBTQ rights, labor rights, and abortion rights. She has also been vocal on consumer protection and protection of user data by social media sites. She has addressed the handling of hate speech and the spread of misinformation by social media giants such as Facebook. She has also advocated a ban on assault weapons and plans to do so if given a chance.   Kamala Harris Policies: Conclusion A candidate's eligibility can be evaluated from their beliefs and accomplishments in the past. Looking at the background of Kamala Harris policies, one can easily assess that the policies of Kamala Harris will be in line with the progress of the United States in the future too. With the proper implementation of these policies, America will see an era of equality, prosperity, and growth that will be remembered for decades to come. Senator Harris has served on important positions in the past, and from her record, it appears that she is a firm believer in American values and knows the issues faced by ordinary American citizens. A Biden-Harris administration will be a true form of democracy that will establish the government of the people. Harris not only recognizes the issues being faced by the country but also holds the experience and skill that could help the country to eliminate these problems. Read More COVID-Infected Trump and Refusal to the peaceful transfer of power: How will it agitate political crisis? Trump Income Tax evasion: Did he really skim the system by paying just $750 in taxes? Missed Votes Congress: Complete information regarding missed votes by senators and representatives Trump Vs. Biden Polls: What can America lose in the second term of Trump? First Presidential debate in heated environment: How the approaches of both candidates differ regarding key issues?

[arpov-blog-blog]

‘Come on, Bernie’: Democrats clash on Senate floor over Sanders proposal | The Hill

Bernie knows that if this provision had been added to the proposed 'Inflation Reduction Bill' both Manchin and Sinema would withdraw their support. This is a prime example of why Progressives need more politically pragmatic and strategic leadership. Putting on a show that accomplishes nothing only makes Progressives look out of touch and ineffective. Working with Democrats to maintain their Congressional majorities and expand it in the Senate would allow his proposal to be enacted after the midterm elections.

Apparently, it's all about Bernie, and not about realistic opportunities of accomplishment. But as I reminded people still upset about Bernie not winning the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination, Bernie is not a Democrat. They owed him nothing. Young people and Progressives lost sight of reality and we ended up with a white supremacist dictator wanna be, DJT..."Tensions simmered on the Senate floor early Sunday as members clashed during an overnight voting marathon over a proposal offered by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to restore the party’s expanded child tax credit.

Sanders offered an amendment to revive the expanded credit, which lapsed late last year, as part of Democrats’ sprawling tax, health care and climate bill, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act. But the Vermont Independent was the only one to support the revision, as it ultimately failed in a 1-97 vote.

The vote came as the Senate hunkered down for an hours-long vote-a-rama, one of the last, key hurdles Democrats have to clear to secure passage for their mammoth bill. During the often grueling, drawn-out voting session, any senator has the chance to force a floor vote on amendment.

In floor remarks ahead of the vote on Sunday, Sanders said the amendment sought to bring back a temporary expansion to the credit that was passed in the American Rescue Plan, a sweeping coronavirus relief package Democrats passed last year.

“Pathetically, the United States has the highest child poverty rate of almost any major country on Earth, and it is especially high among young people of color,” Sanders said. “This is the wealthiest nation on Earth, we should not have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any country.”

“The American Rescue Plan included a $300 a month child tax credit which ended up lowering the child poverty rate in America by over 40 percent,” Sanders added, noting his amendment would restore the expanded credit for four years and “be fully paid for by restoring the top corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.”

The move by Sanders drew immediate pushback from Democrats ahead of the amendment vote, who expressed support for the child tax credit provision by itself but emphasized that they could not support the change in an effort to protect final passage on the full package.

 “Sen. Sanders is right, the child tax credit is one of the most important things this body did. It brought down the child poverty rate by 40 percent almost immediately,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has long advocated for a renewal of the expanded credit. But he urged colleagues against voting for the amendment to avoid bringing “the bill down.” 

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

As President Joe Biden works to enact his plan for cutting greenhouse gases, a long dormant rift among climate action activists is surfacing.

On one side are those who believe that renewable energy—especially solar, wind, and hydroelectricity—will be sufficient to fuel the economy and get the world to zero emissions. On the other side are those who, like the Biden administration, think fossil fuels are likely to have a role in the nation’s energy future, making it important to invest in technology to capture carbon emissions.

This dispute was largely buried in recent years, as progressives and moderates bonded together to oppose President Donald Trump’s wholesale unraveling of environmental protections. But now it threatens to complicate the already difficult job that Biden faces in getting his $2 trillion American Jobs Plan through Congress.

“These are divisions that reflect, I think, on one side an ideological crusade of the far left versus a pragmatic approach by the Biden administration that is focused on what’s politically possible,” said Paul Bledsoe, a strategic consultant for the Progressive Policy Institute who worked on climate change in President Bill Clinton’s White House.

But a series of recent Biden administration decisions have disappointed environmentalists, including  the defense of a huge Trump-approved oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope;, the issuing of Western oil and gas leases sold during Trump’s final days; and the refusal to shut down controversial oil pipelines. And as Biden searched for Republican support in Congress for his climate plan, tensions among environmentalists were running high.

The climate action movement united behind Biden last year after he became the Democratic presumptive nominee. And Biden’s ambitious goals—especially his commitment to put the United States on a path toward 100 percent clean electricity by 2035—came out of a joint task force he established with his chief rival and avatar of the progressive movement, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

But there is fierce disagreement about what “clean electricity” means.

The White House is convinced it is necessary to take an expansive approach in reducing carbon pollution, both to secure the needed votes and to get the nation on track to net zero emissions. That approach would include investments in carbon capture, a technology that pulls carbon dioxide from smokestacks or even directly from the air and buries it underground or diverts it to other uses.

#President Biden #environmental activism #climate activism

[scribespirare]

Your voting advice was really helpful!! I'd never heard of tactical voting before, but I'm definitely going to keep this in mind every election now and vote smarter. It seems like it needs a lot of dems doing the same thing for it to work though. Apparently, abbott has 60% of the vote while the candidate with the next most, west, only has 15%. But only 375 repubs took the poll. It's worrying because I don't know if the repub candidate with the second most votes will change, rendering my vote useless. These tactics should be more widespread. Isn't there a discord server for dems to strategize and predict the polls together?! Also I'm an idiot. I don't know why I thought bernie sanders would vote in a texas election when he doesn't even live here.

Lmao you're fine, and it never hurts to see if politicians you actually like/tolerate are promoting officials in your area.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with Texas Dems is that they aren't unified enough to be able to vote in blocks to make any significant changes. At the end of the day, without any kind of backing or group momentum, your vote is going to feel 'useless' regardless of what you do. It's good that you're doing research and thinking more tactically, and I still encourage you to vote even if you choose not to be tactical about it, but like...the Dems aren't behind us. They almost outright refuse to back us. If they wanted to win they'd put some ground effort into their campaigns, not to mention have actual coherent political policies. But instead they have that underdog defeatist mentally that I absolutely abhor about Dems, the belief that if Repubs win and run ramshod over all of us we'll have no choice but to turn to them as the only safe choice, and then and only then will they rise up and save us all. But that never fucking works, and especially not in Texas.

Anyways, sorry for the rant. I still suggest voting in the Repub primary and taking a vote away from Abbott. It doesn't have to go to someone who will win necessarily, it just diffuses the vote a little, and maybe knocking the wind out of his sails about his own party's support will do some good in the long run.

#asks #long post #us politics #texas politics #what we really need here are grass roots movements #people who rise up to engage their communities #but the problem with that is our Dek politicians SUCK ASS #and nobody is passionate about them lmao

[sweetdreamspootypie]

For what little it is worth, I think Biden was unfortunately the best Dem candidate to be picked to run.

I’m basing this on the New Zealand election. You may have heard that Labour, our center left party won in a landslide, and there are lots of factors that contributed to that.

But crucially, one theory has been discussed that I think has weight - which is that more conservative voters were strategically voting against the Green party.

The Green party normally enters into coalition partnerships with the Labour party, and advocates for more “extreme” wealth taxes and more environmental protections which would inconvenience farmers.

It was obvious to everyone that the National Party, the other big party, had no policy platform, no good candidate, and an unstable party structure with infighting. It was obvious that they were not going to win - especially when paired with Jacinda Adern’s Labour popularity gained from the Covid response.

So a lot of people, particularly farmer types according to the discussion I read, who would have normally voted National, instead voted Labor. 

And they voted Labor specifically because they wanted to achieve this historic landslide Labour victory where they had over 50% of the parliamentary seats so that they would not need to form a coalition with the Greens - so they would not be beholden to listening to Green’s policy demands.

I don’t know if that truly was one of the main driving force for what happened, but to me it makes some sense and is worth considering.

So even in New Zealand, a country praised for being generally progressive and world leading in many areas, our population, especially our economic conservatives, defected from the National party which they habitually supported for years, maybe their whole lifetimes, and they defected because the idea of slightly more progressive policy makers in power was just too scary, just sounded too inconvenient. They came out in a landslide in support of incrementalism and against progressivism.

So what do you think would have happened if the Trump Cult was facing down Bernie Sanders, in the USA, in 2020?

The Trump Cult can’t even find it in themselves to say “maybe it would be nice to have pandemic control” and you think they would have gone out of their way to change their voting habits and not vote Republican? Do you think the landslide of people who came out and made it so more people voted to Biden than have ever voted before would have left their comfort zone for someone that was more challenging to them? You think he would have any chance at reclaiming voters from the Trump Cult and heal the divides?

America has deep issues. Approaching them with realism is a necessary part of the work.

Necessary doesn’t mean pleasant.

#us politics #my posts #biden #mutter mutter mutter #just my 2 cents #Biden and Harris both suck as people #and as politicians #but right now they are necessary tools #sacrificial blocks to put under the wheels to slow the carriage hurtling out of control #we need some breaks before you can change direction

[bustedbernie]

Jane King, a financial investor from Boston who describes herself as progressive, began the presidential primary as an avowed supporter of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. But as Ms. Warren’s candidacy seemed to fade early this year, Ms. King looked elsewhere.

She considered Michael R. Bloomberg, Ms. Warren’s electoral nemesis. She thought about Pete Buttigieg, another moderate. Ultimately, in the Massachusetts primary that was a must-win for Ms. Warren, Ms. King voted for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

She was simply trying to be strategic, Ms. King admits: She was willing to do whatever was necessary to stop Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont from becoming the Democratic nominee.

“I didn’t want Bernie to beat Elizabeth in her own backyard. But then, it became much more complicated than that,” said Ms. King, 70. “Are we going to have a nominee who could take on the Republican Party? We have to stop Bernie.”

Ahead of Mr. Sanders’s presidential run in 2020, his campaign did not concern itself with smoothing tensions among voters who supported Mrs. Clinton in 2016. He did not seek the endorsements of many party leaders, who were always unlikely to back him, but could have been swayed from being openly antagonistic to ambivalent.

Progressive groups have been left to lament what could have been, and some have openly questioned the outreach strategy of the Democrats’ left flank. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said recently that some on the left were too focused on “conflict.” Sean McElwee, a founder of the progressive think tank Data for Progress, said progressives must couple their desire to change the scope of the Democratic electorate with regular efforts at political persuasion.

“It cannot be a hostile takeover,” Mr. McElwee said. “We have to persuade people in the Democratic Party that our ideas are good ones and we’ll make the world a better place.”

The most stark example of Mr. Sanders’s problems with self-identified Democrats may be the Warren-to-Biden voters, people like Barbara Becker and Lisa Stone. These voters, many of whom are older Democrats and college-educated women, chose to support a candidate whose platform was a far cry from Ms. Warren’s promises of “big, structural change,” rather than a fellow progressive, Mr. Sanders — whom they admit they agree with on most policy matters.

The voters said that while they share many of Mr. Sanders’s beliefs, they reject his political style.

“Biden is and always has been a collaborative worker — one who knows how to gather and draw on colleagues’ expertise,” said Ms. Becker, 73, a college professor in Chapel Hill, N.C. “Sanders is a do-it-yourselfer.”

Ms. Stone, 63, an educator in Houston, said she “supported Warren because she was progressive but practical, and that’s not what Sanders is.”

Plus, Mr. Biden is, like her, a Democrat through and through. And Ms. Stone said that while she remained disappointed Ms. Warren did not perform better in Texas, the fact that the state went to Mr. Biden was some consolation.

“I wasn’t terribly upset,” she said. “It’s better than Sanders winning.”

#bernie #berniesanders #joebiden #joe biden #bernie sanders #elizabeth warren #hillary clinton #2020 #great article

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

There was Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Bill Bradley in 2000. There was Howard Dean in 2004 and Bernie Sanders in 2016. Candidates running as liberal or populist alternatives to more center-left, establishment candidates have often lost in Democratic primaries. And while the party has shifted left on policy and some of its most compelling figures (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Elizabeth Warren) are very liberal, the center left has generally won head-to-head battles with the left over the last four years, whether the battlefield was policy debates on Capitol Hill or congressional and gubernatorial primaries. So in late December it seemed likely that former Vice President Joe Biden was on course to win the nomination — a fairly unsurprising outcome, as he is the kind of center-left establishment candidate Democrats often choose.

Biden is now almost certainly going to win the nomination. But watching the process in the moment, Biden’s victory didn’t seem at all like a foregone conclusion; Sanders was the clear front-runner in the period between the Nevada caucuses and Super Tuesday, and Biden looked fairly weak then.

So assuming Sanders doesn’t make a miraculous comeback, it’s worth asking: Did the left broadly and Sanders and Warren in particular blow the 2020 campaign?1 Or did Sanders, Warren and the left always have a narrow path to victory because Democrats have tended to prefer more centrist candidates, and the period between Nevada and Super Tuesday a bit of a mirage?

Let’s look at both perspectives.

The deck was stacked against the left

There are a bunch of reasons to subscribe to this theory:

Most Democrats are not unabashedly liberal or looking for Sanders-style policies. At most, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party amounts to about a third of the primary electorate. Democrats who identify as “very liberal” accounted for between 20 and 30 percent of the electorate in most states that have voted so far in the 2020 primaries, according to exit polls.

Democratic primary voters, largely because of their antipathy toward President Trump, were obsessed with electability from the start of the 2020 campaign and were likely more wary of female or leftist candidates on that basis.

The media largely covered the race through the frame of electability, as opposed to a more policy-focused frame like candidates’ pitch for “structural change.” This cast leftward policy ideas as a barrier to electoral victory.

Biden was an especially strong candidate because of his pre-campaign popularity with black voters and the fact that primary voters were already focused on electability, which turned his centrism, gender and race into advantages in a way they might not have been if Democrats were not so nervous about Trump.

The wealthy have disproportionate power in American politics and they’re wary of populist candidates, so they used their money and influence to weaken Sanders and Warren.

There was a virtually unprecedented mobilization of the Democratic establishment to stop Sanders ahead of Super Tuesday.

The center left borrowed many of the left’s ideas, making it harder for the liberal candidates to distinguish themselves without taking controversial stands.

That last point is hard to disagree with — and hard to pin on Sanders or Warren. Indeed, it’s in part a testament to their success. In early 2015, the Obama administration started pushing for what was a fairly bold idea at the time: free community college across America. The Democratic Party’s main health care goal was to make sure the Affordable Care Act was implemented broadly. Now, both wings of the party have shifted left: The party’s more centrist wing is advocating for free four-year college for most Americans and providing Medicare-style coverage for everyone who wants it, and Sanders took up the banner for free college for everyone and Medicare for All.

You can see this on issue after issue — the center of gravity in Democratic policymaking has moved left. If you think of Sanders as essentially running a five-year campaign to move the Democratic Party closer to him on policy (rather than campaigning to become president himself), he has been fairly successful.

But the center left shifting leftward probably makes it harder for more liberal candidates like Sanders to actually win. If Biden ran on just maintaining Obamacare, it would have been easier for Sanders to distinguish himself on health care. Instead, Biden embraced a Medicare-style public option that is very popular and also a shift left from the status quo.

Biden “has already adopted a lot of progressive policies,” said Jacob Hacker, a political science professor at Yale and a longtime advocate of a Medicare-style public option.

The other point in that list that’s pretty undebatable is the effort to stop Sanders. What happened in the three days between the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday — in particular, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar dropping out of the race and flying to Texas to endorse Biden — was surprising and without much precedent in recent primaries.

“I have never seen my party do anything it deemed strategically necessary as quickly and decisively as it did here,” said Brian Fallon, a longtime Democratic operative who was Hillary Clinton’s national press secretary for her 2016 presidential campaign.

The other explanations for the left’s weaknesses that I listed above are more debatable. For example, it’s true that most Democrats don’t call themselves “very liberal,” but the plurality of Democrats in most states described themselves as “somewhat liberal,” and that is a group Sanders and Warren should have been trying to appeal to as well. Warren, in particular, had a period of fairly favorable media coverage during which she made inroads with those “somewhat liberal” voters. It just didn’t last. And there were other openings for Sanders and Warren in the electorate; Biden, while strong with some blocs in the party, had almost no support among younger voters until fairly recently.

Overall, however, I think there is a decent case that the left was always going to have a hard time defeating a center left in 2020.

“The Sanders/Warren wing is smaller than the Obama/Clinton/Biden wing of the party, even though the Sanders/Warren wing tends to be more active and visible, especially online,” said Benjamin Knoll, who teaches American politics at Kentucky’s Centre College. “The Sanders wing of the party is hugely popular among younger Democrats, and time and time again they simply don’t show up to vote in primaries at the same rate as older voters.”

He added, “In 2016, the ‘establishment’ wing coalesced around a single candidate, Hillary Clinton, and was able to beat back Sanders. This time it may have been possible for Sanders to follow the 2016 Trump route by having a core third of the party and splitting the establishment vote, allowing him to emerge with a plurality. But the Democratic primary electorate coalesced around Biden after South Carolina.”

The left blew it

Of course, that’s not to say you can’t make a compelling argument that 2020 represented a golden opportunity for the left and they simply fumbled it.

The left embraced two Northeastern liberals with entirely predictable weaknesses with older black voters, and neither Sanders nor Warren did much to connect with those voters.

Sanders and Warren did not focus enough on convincing voters that they were as electable as Biden, even as polls showed Democratic voters were obsessed with picking a candidate who could beat Trump.

Sanders and Warren embraced getting rid of private insurance in favor of Medicare for All, a position that is controversial even among Democrats and was easy for the center left to cast as both impractical and a barrier to defeating Trump.

Neither Sanders nor Warren had effective strategies for defending themselves from attacks from the party’s center left after they surged in the polls.

After his win in Nevada, Sanders did little to engage Democrats who didn’t already support him; in fact, he antagonized them.

Warren was unwilling to drop out and endorse Sanders before Super Tuesday, even as the weaker center-left candidates consolidated around Biden.

Sanders’s campaign apparently planned to win the nomination by getting a plurality of the vote (30 to 35 percent) in a crowded field and it didn’t appear to have a real plan for a one-on-one contest against Biden.

It’s likely that all of these campaign-centric factors combined to represent a relatively big barrier to either Sanders or Warren winning the nomination. That said, figuring out which one of these factors was singularly important is really complicated. And in my interviews with Democratic operatives, people tended to highlight shortcomings of the left that aligned with their own preexisting views — more centrist Democrats argued that Sanders and Warren ran on platforms that were too liberal and that those candidates didn’t focus on electability enough, while African American activists said those campaigns did too little outreach to black people, and people aligned with Warren said Sanders didn’t do enough to court the party establishment.

Also, a lot of campaign tactics seem clearly misguided in hindsight but were entirely defensible in the moment. And looking at Warren and Sanders’s campaigns combined is helpful in illustrating this point. For example, it’s hard to claim that Sanders lost because he didn’t court the party establishment enough if you consider how much Warren pursued party elites to little avail. Perhaps Warren should have talked about electability more when she was surging in the polls, but Sanders emphasized his ability to build support among people who backed Trump in 2016 from the beginning of his campaign and Democratic voters still thought Biden was the safest choice.

Finally, some of the more campaign-centric narratives seem clearly contradicted by the structural case I laid out above. Biden’s support among black voters was strong before he formally started his campaign, and none of the other candidates — including two prominent black ones (Sens. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris) — ever really dented it, so it’s hard to say that flawed black outreach was a particular failing of Sanders or Warren.

But the full-scale push for Medicare for All by Sanders, Warren and the broader left — even after it was clear that they were losing the primary debate on that issue — seems like it was a mistake electorally, even if it was a righteous cause. (The massive numbers of people losing their jobs as businesses shut down to slow the spread the coronavirus has probably bolstered the case that Americans’ health insurance should not be tied to their jobs, as Sanders aides are now arguing.) Once Biden entered the race and started pushing back against Medicare for All, Buttigieg and Harris, who are fairly savvy about seeing shifts in the political winds, started backtracking from the idea. Warren and Sanders could have done the same. Some Democrats doubted Warren’s electability for reasons that were somewhat unfair to her (she is a woman and lives in Massachusetts), but her embrace of Medicare for All freed her critics to argue that they were worried her policies made her unelectable, not her gender.

After all, basically no one thinks Medicare for All has any chance of passing Congress anytime soon. Warren, after months of criticism, eventually started pushing for a phased-in Medicare for All plan that would start with a Medicare-style public option, along the lines of what Biden and Buttigieg were proposing. Sanders never backtracked from Medicare for All, but one of his top surrogates, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, conceded in February that a Medicare buy-in might be all that could get passed in Congress, at least in the short term.

Medicare for All “has taken a lot of the oxygen out of the room for more popular health care ideas,” said Julian NoiseCat, vice president for policy and strategy at Data for Progress, a think tank allied with the party’s left wing.

And the Medicare for All issue can be tied to a broader narrative of the left failing that goes something like this: In an environment where it was fairly predictable that a candidate backed by black voters and electability-minded voters would do well, the party’s left wing championed Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, neither of whom had history of connecting with black voters or running based on electability. Both ran campaigns that emphasized their leftism, particularly on Medicare for All. Neither campaign seemed well prepared for the backlash against leftism from the party’s center-left elites, nor did they seem to have any plan to convince voters who aren’t very liberal that they could get elected on these liberal ideas and then implement them as president.

And that focus on leftist policies likely made it even harder for these candidates to win over black voters. “Black Democrats may be a lot more skeptical of big promises from the government; a lot of these ideas fail the black voter smell-test,” said Hakeem Jefferson, a Stanford University professor who studies black political attitudes.

Like a lot of things, the truth here probably lies somewhere in between these two arguments. Sanders and Warren struggled in 2020 because of big, structural factors outside of their control, but also because of a few major missteps along the way. Anyway, does it really matter if Sanders’s likely loss was 20 percent, 50 percent or 80 percent his fault?

Yes, actually. There is already a discussion underway about what the party’s left wing should do in the future. One view, which fits with the general argument that left-wing Democrats faced structural challenges in 2020, is that time is on the side of the progressives. Younger Democrats tend to support more liberal candidates, so the party could gradually move left as the millennial and Gen Z generations become larger shares of the electorate.

But NoiseCat, arguing that winning is within the left’s control now, says that progressives need to make some strategic shifts post-Sanders: pushing liberal ideas that also poll well, building closer ties with the party’s establishment wing and doing more to persuade Democratic voters that leftist ideas are both achievable and not electorally dangerous.

“With Bernie Sanders losing,” NoiseCat said, “the silver lining is we get to define a progressive movement post-Bernie that is not attached to him.”

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Perry Bacon Jr.

[marxist-feminist]

“I have never voted for a candidate in my life. But I will be voting for Bernie Sanders in the democratic primary and the general election. If I’m doing that, there are probably tens of millions in that same position. Let me explain why I’m doing this now:

I’ve spoken out many times over the years about the dangers that electoral politics hold for mass movements- reducing involvement to this one moment, this one person, and making it unclear to masses of people that power under capitalism comes at the point of exploitation. That politicians are beholden to the ruling class- not simply due to campaign financing (although that’s part of it) But that they are beholden to those who wield power through control of the economy- by taking the wealth that we create with our labor and controlling industry, controlling markets. And that elections, often leave people feeling disempowered after- if their candidate wins, people take a “let’s wait and see” attitude. If their candidate loses, people either wait or organize for the next election. Never creating a mass movement at the point of contradiction under capitalism, which would mean organizing on the job in a way that could withhold labor collectively and shut down industry when necessary.

I believe that we need a world in which the people democratically control the wealth that we create with our labor. This would be real, actual power in the hands of the people. Actual “democracy”. You can call that communism, you can call it socialism, you can call it pancakes. I don’t give a fuck what you call it, but that’s the world that we need.

Right now, we have a new era in the movements we see growing in the US. Several polls over the last few years- Gallup polls, university polls, polls by rightwing think tanks- have consistently shown that 51% of millennials would prefer a socialism and 43% of all age demographics in the US would prefer socialism. If you account for the folks that wouldn’t say that to a stranger on the phone, I’d bet that those numbers are higher.

Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen things like the Anti-Iraq War movement mobilize literal millions of people onto the streets all over the world, but was unable to stop the war. We learned that power cannot be simply shamed into capitulating to the demands of the people.

We’ve seen the Occupy Movement come along and surprise everyone. In every town and city in the US, there was an Occupy encampment that put forward the closest thing to a class analysis we’d seen in the mass media: the 1% vs the 99%. Studies showed that before Occupy, mainstream news had only dared utter the word “capitalism” less than a handful of times in the 20 years before. After that, for at least a short period of time, it was being uttered several times a day. And although the encampments were a small percentage of the population of each town, there was a large percentage who saw the encampments and agreed, even if they wouldn’t or couldn’t go there themselves.

Occupy Oakland was started by dedicated radicals who understood the spectacle that was happening and wanted to further radicalize it. So a one-day general strike was called, which also shut down the ports- as a symbol of where power lies under capitalism. 50,000 people- organized by nurses, longshoremen, teachers, students, transit workers and others involved in Occupy- came out and shut things down.

We’ve also seen the Black Lives Matter movement grow and valiantly respond to the epidemic of cops killing Black folks and also learning that the people that make the decisions governing our lives, don’t change their actions simply because they know that the community is upset.

We must have movements with teeth. Ones that are able to force the hands of power.

Over the past few years we’ve seen a sharp rise in people organizing on the job. I don’t mean just the traditional labor unions- although those unions are growing faster and some are becoming more militant than they have been before (largely driven by their ever more radical rank-and-file). I’m also talking about everything from previously unorganized retail workers, baristas, ride-share workers, grad student workers, farm workers, fast food workers, theater workers, tech workers, and more.

We’ve seen wildcat strikes in places the media told us was too right-wing and anti-union like the very militant West Virginia Teachers Wildcat Strike. And things like the Chicago, LA, and Oakland teachers strikes- militant strikes which were welcomed with open arms by their communities.

Some of the militancy is becoming more radical in some instances, with folks striking in solidarity with each other- like when Wayfair furniture workers went on strike last year to stop Wayfair from working with ICE and their detention centers. And the workers won. Or when grad students in many instances across the US went on strike in solidarity with custodial staff. Or when 20,000 Google workers did rolling work stoppage walkouts to have management address many issues, including sexual harassment.

People are looking for ways to exact power over their own lives. More and more they’re realizing that in order to do that we need a mass, militant, radical labor movement that can collectively withhold labor as a tool- not only for higher wages and benefits- but as a tool for larger social justice issues as well (What would have happened if radicals had been organizing a labor movement for the decade prior to Mike Brown’s murder and a general or even targeted strike happened? Indictment, real quick). People are realizing that this sort of a movement will need to break the current labor laws, ie Taft-Hartley, that prohibit solidarity strikes. This will take radical leadership.

In order to get some of the reforms that Bernie Sanders’ campaign platform calls for- Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, free university and trade school tuition, building 10 million more homes in an effort to address homelessness- it’s going to take movement tactics. We are going to have to have strategic targeted and general strikes to force the hand of the folks who have some of these politicians in their pockets. Imagine BART and AC Transit workers striking until Pelosi commits to Medicare for All. Or West Virginia teachers striking to force the vote of Joe Manchin. If we have a movement that can shut down industries through the withholding of labor, we can make politicians do what we want. We’re going to need radicals to get us there.

I’m not voting for Bernie because I don’t disagree with him on things (Venezuela, for instance). Nor do I believe that the reforms he proposes will be the socialist world that we need.

What I am endorsing is the movement that has grown around him that involves millions of people who are willing to consciously and openly engage in class struggle in order to make these reforms happen.

These struggles will radicalize millions of people and have the potential to organize the working class in the US to a point we haven’t seen before. We keep going from there.”

- Boots Riley’s official endorsement of Bernie Sanders

#boots riley #2020 election #2020 #2020 candidates #bernie sanders #elizabeth warren #michael bloomberg #mike bloomberg #bloomberg 2020 #bloomberg #Pete Buttigieg #warren 2020 #buttigieg 2020 #2020 democratic presidential primary #democratic nomination #democratic party #dnc #democratic national convention #socialism #capitalism #anti-capitalism #any blue will do #blue no matter who #democrats #racism #anti-racism #black lives matter #blm

[rgr-pop]

Re: canvassing for Bernie. I guess mostly advice on being effective. I went canvassing in Va before Super Tuesday and felt pretty ineffective, we used the minivan app which just showed us dem voters which makes sense right before the election but I’m wondering if I should widen the net going forward? Idk I’d be canvassing in md and wv thanks in advance you truly are the only smart person on this site

i actually did not have the best experience today, but some of my friends did. my friend the one from flint who went on msnbc to tell chris hayes he didn't vote for hillary because he's from flint, he had a really good day and he felt really good about everything. he gave me some good points, which i will share with you in a second. the reason you didn't feel effective in VA is because everyone in VA is a CIA asset and you shouldn't internalize that. i'm thrilled that you get to talk to people in WV and I think policy and talking points are really going to be on your side, and the people are going to be cool as hell (even if they are not-already bernard voters). 

 i think bernard kinda fucked over michigan in a few ways this year (no beef but it's true), but i am lucky because my city has some extremely experienced campaign people, and i have never really had to experience doing canvassing for any kind of campaign that wasn't run by them, so i was kind of confused about how little direction you were given. they keep asking me to do higher-up stuff like drawing up the voter lists and strategizing and hosting canvasses, but i keep being like, put me on the doors dude that's where i belong. (my palestinian libra dirtbag is exactly the same, he did like three turfs today lol.) i can probably ask my campaign people for tips if you feel like you don't have any guidance. 

since we're so close to election day, we'd normally be only targeting likely/confirmed voters to get out the vote, but because things are so crazy, we're also hitting up voters identified as undecided or previously soft-opponent or i think even independent and we're actually still trying to change minds. this is not super usual but it's crisis time! so, to answer your question, i would say i think you should widen the net, especially in WV. the dem voter problem isn't a huge issue where i am because people in lansing flint and detroit are literally just always democrats no matter what, but in other states i think it's more nuanced.

most of the following advice pertains to actually talking to people, but it should cover the range of voters you may encounter. i think i feel the least effective when i "fail" to engage people in a conversation, so i recommend talking to them in more open-ended ways. i share some of our script down below, but in general i like to ask people questions to draw them in, rather than telling people what we're about. get them to talk about themselves, and they will remember bernie sanders as the candidate that listened. i swear to god that works. 

today they gave me a sheet (i gave it to a new girl so i can't remember exactly, but) that focused on swinging those voters. it's still "don't shittalk opponent" territory but it's a list of ways to explicitly contrast sanders and biden on the policies, and it made me realize that we're extremely lucky to be put in this position because those contrasts are stark, and they are convincing to poor people in particular. 

what's interesting is that i'm no longer leaning into medicare for all to do my arguing, and i think that's gonna make me more effective. obviously bernie is stronger (literally: strongest) on this issue, but the messaging around biden's work on the ACA and his recent dodging about the issue doesn't help us convince anybody. healthcare is the most important thing on the table but it remains inscrutable: i would say dig into it with voters only if they bring it up as an issue that matters to them, or if they're healthcare workers (non-doctor probably), or if you are going to talk about an experience of your own. when you do talk about healthcare, especially in WV, remember bernie's position on medical debt. this is one of his clearest contrasts with biden. make sure you're familiar with biden's history with bankruptcy and debt, because i'd be willing to bet that that's something that's gonna resonate with WV and MD voters. 

the trade deals and NAFTA are, simply, the most important thing to talk about at this point, and imo (based on the critical states, michigan most of all) that's what's going to win us this election, if we talk to people about it. hillary clinton lost the election because she did NAFTA--simple as that. biden, too, did NAFTA, but the thing about him--as i'm sure you're noticing--is that people seem to forget absolutely everything about him, and no one knows that he did NAFTA. joe biden is behind loads of policy that was outright bad for industrial workers and ruined lives. it is simply enough to argue "bernie sanders did not do NAFTA" but you'll want to look into his trade deal positions and history, contrast these with both biden and trump. if you're worried about the xenophobic underbelly of this problem, frame it as exactly what it is: a position that resists giving corporations free reign to do whatever they want, to abandon communities, and stomp all over workers. 

look over some of bernie's positions on unions and labor in general. neither of the states you are going to are strongly right-to-work states right now, but where i live that's a really important thing. both biden and bernie, interestingly, have proposed a ban on right-to-work laws (it rules that we are in a place where this was mainstream for candidates, but it remains to be seen who will actually pursue this! the literal birthplace of the UAW went right-to-work while biden was VP soooo.) bernie also wants to end at-will employment and has a slate of proposal to strengthen unions. you should tell this to almost everyone. biden claims to support many similar plans, but he has not historically been especially strong in these areas, and his plans are generally less encompassing. 

you should be prepared to confront concerns that bernie's strong environmental positions will hurt workers in WV. talk to people about a "just transition" and really emphasize the point that industry, and coal companies in particular, have been empowered to come and go as they please without any consequences. bernard's plans in general are job creators, and the idea is to bring sustainable--as in, sticking--jobs to appalachia and the rust belt, as well as universal healthcare for people made sick by their jobs. universal healthcare is an engine for jobs. 

the war in iraq, support for veterans, and social security are extremely huge issues for poor people, probably specifically in WV. 

you will also talk to another major electorate: people who just want to beat trump. this is advice from the msnbc friend, who knows: give them all the bernie beats trump lines. only bernie beats trump. convince them that biden will have all the same problems hillary clinton had against trump. if they bring up the alleged low youth turnout on super tuesday, remind them that the south has particular voter suppression issues that impact young and college voters, and that thus far young people actually have been turning out in the north and west. and the youth turnout on super tuesday was still higher than average! remind them that a democrat without the so-called youth vote has never beat a republican in the general in this century. most importantly, remind them that because of our flawed electoral system, you could win every single person on the west coast, but you're essentially never going to win the election if you can't win macomb county, michigan. and macomb county, michigan is full of working class voters who were really hurt by the policies of joe biden and hillary clinton and, increasingly, donald trump, and they are interested in bernie sanders, and it's life or death for them. tell them you have a friend in michigan who has seen this first hand :). (hoping march tenth bears this out for us lol.) 

gonna round out the hard issues section here by suggesting you read this, which i think is pretty convincing: https://newrepublic.com/article/156819/rebooting-bernie-sanders 

 today i talked to a guy who said, "bernie sanders, i think i heard obama likes him." and i said, yep, bernie worked really hard to pass some of obama's best policies. and that's true :) 

in general, the sanders campaign relies really heavily on the "bernie story," the personal narrative. i think it probably works. it really works for me, because i can talk to people about the stuff that isn't just the green new deal and loan forgiveness--although you will definitely also end up talking to educated people who will need to be reminded that bernie sanders wants to forgive their loans and joe biden wants them to be saddled with them until the end of time. remember to talk to people about where you work and where you live. work and homes is the most important thing to absolutely everyone. tell them you have a teacher friend lol. talk to people about other people you've met. tell other people's stories. 

 in case you need guidance in this area, try a script that looks something like this (sorry if this is condescending and you already have seen the scripts, but i kind of modify them based on my strengths as a canvasser): 

i'm so and so and i'm with the bernard sanders campaign and we're out reminding people to vote on [date]. 

do you plan on voting? do you know who you're voting for? can we count on you to vote for bernie? [remind people of the stakes of the election, it's gonna be a close one, talk to your friends and family.] [then get them to think about their election day plan: do you know where your polling location is? what time are you going? do you have transportation?] [try to have support info available for them if they do not have these things. if they're worrying about not being able to get off work, commiserate/be empathetic and don't blame.] [let them know how they can get involved in the campaign.] 

if they say they are not voting, sometimes you can respect that (shoutout to jehovah's witness), but if they're on your list, they're probably registered, so you can ask them what kind of issues prevent them from voting. a lot of people will tell you that voting is stupid. you should agree with them (they are right). remind them that you would not normally be canvassing for a democratic candidate or any presidential candidate. you're working with tons of people who never canvassed, or maybe never even voted before. this is the first time in my entire life that i had the opportunity to vote for a candidate that addressed the issues that weigh on me on a day to day basis. a major candidate that hates the two party system and refuses to submit to democratic party nonsense. who has a plan that might actually work. a candidate that has a plan to make everybody's life better, even people who aren't out here canvassing for him. poor people. remind them that bernie sanders is the strongest candidate among non- and first-time voters! this area is a strength of mine because all of this is 100% true for me. i hate electoral politics and i hate the democratic party! if they have other reasons for not voting, see if you have any info that can help them. also remind them that this is a close race, an uphill battle, a difficult fight, and their vote is going to REALLY make a difference. but if we try, we will win. 

if they say they "think" they know who they're voting for, they're probably thinking about someone else. you'd be surprised--i am so surprised--how many people have no idea, even up til they get to the polls, or they change their mind last minute. try to prepare a few sentences that are really personal but probably relatable that they can chew on. mine looks something like this: i'm from flint michigan and i've seen the way the government has started to let companies get away with absolutely anything, abandon families that have worked for them for generations, and weaken unions. i want fair wages, fair taxes and for companies to be accountable to their workers and the communities that make them run & make them rich, and that's the bernie sanders platform, and i fear joe biden's ideas are moving us in the same direction that we're already moving. my husband's family worked for GM for four generations but we can't get jobs in flint much less find a place to live. being from flint, and in my own working life, i've watched the power of unions just totally erode. i myself am in a teacher's union and just recently, for the first time in my life,i feel like we can move in a direction where workers have real power in their workplace. especially watching teachers and support staff rally behind sanders, or these huge strikes. sometimes here i also say something about schools! etc.! ! sometimes that's all you get, but sometimes people want to hear more! in either case, this will stick with them. 

if they say they are undecided, ask them what kind of issues motivate them to vote, or ask them what they think about sanders. refer to all of the above, but don't argue, use bernie's positions to add to what they are saying, be a good empathetic active listener etc. but also make sure they know that you have shared experiences, agree with them. 99% of the time their issues will be better addressed by bernie, if they are working class people. sometimes they will reveal that they are nervous to vote for sanders. remind them of the size and energy of the base, and the electability arguments listed above. one of the reasons we want to canvass is to remind people--especially in conservative communities, where their neighbors may not even be voting in this primary--that it's okay and in fact very popular to vote for bernie, and we're competitive, and if we make it to the general we're gonna win. but it's not going to be easy [talk to your friends and family get involved go online etc.] 

if they are leaning biden but undecided, sometimes it's fine to ask them why, ask them for a pitch. you can tell them that you agree, and that we have had a really strong contest this year, and maybe in another year biden would have been the strongest choice, but bernie's just better in all these areas, etc. 

please lmk if you want more ideas! i'll try to take a picture of some of our documents tomorrow when i'm out.

[thedreideldiaries]

Hey, friends! I thought I’d take this opportunity to expound in my political choices a bit - specifically to give some context for my choice of Sanders over Warren. Note for a few of my followers who know me elsewhere: this is copied over from other social media, so if it sounds familiar that is why.

First, I want to reiterate that I like Warren. So, if anyone reading this is torn between her and any of the other clowns who have thrown their sorry hats into the ring, then please: do me and the rest of the world a favor, stop reading this right now, and go ahead and give Warren your vote. I won’t be mad. Promise. If you’re on the fence between Warren and Sanders, though, then I implore you to read on.

Okay, is it just us in here? Cool.

For my friends torn between Warren and Sanders (like I was at the beginning of the primary), I’ve tried to distill my reasoning. As you know, a lot of the discourse surrounding Warren’s campaign constructs her as a younger, female version of Sanders. If I believed that, I’d be solidly in her corner, but a few differences between them make this simply not the case. Here are the ones I find most salient:

1. Let’s look at Bernie’s base. As much as we love to talk about representation in politics, a candidate’s demographic background tells us nothing about who they’re going to fight for. Their voting base, on the other hand, tells you who has placed their confidence in that candidate’s promises.

A good proportion of Warren’s supporters are white college graduates (young and old).

By contrast Bernie’s base is overwhelmingly working class, non-white, urban, and, perhaps most tellingly, young. You could attribute that to naivete, but I think something else is going on here: the demographic group with the most to win or lose from this election are people under 30. We’re the ones who will have to live with the most devastating effects of climate change, and we’re tired of the so-called adults in our lives not taking that rather pressing concern seriously. We don’t care if our candidate is old or young - we care if they listen. Which brings me to:

2. The Youth. Young people in America are disillusioned with democracy - not because we’ve decided it’s not a good idea, but because we’ve literally never seen it in action. We live in a corporate plutocracy where the financial barriers to running for office have rendered most politicians ridiculously out of touch. And Sanders, more than any other candidate in the primary, knows how to talk to young people.

And look - I’m planning to vote for whoever wins the primary. But if 2016 is anything to go by, if the youth demographic doesn’t get a candidate they can get behind, they won’t vote strategically for the lesser of two evils. They’ll stay home, and given what the Democratic party has done for them over the past 20 or so years, I can’t say I blame them.

3. The same goes for his endorsements. I’d be out of my lane if I spent too much time talking about what Sanders wants to do for people of color, but I think it’s telling that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar - three politicians showing real determination to shake things up in Washington - all chose Bernie over Warren. I think it’s telling that AOC cited his campaign, not Warren’s, as her inspiration for running for office (if anyone’s a female Sanders, it’s not Warren - it’s AOC).

4. Sanders is, quite simply, the genuine article. He’s fought for important causes (climate justice, healthcare, workers’ rights) since long before they were cool. He’s *not* perfect, but criticisms of him rarely touch his political history.

Warren’s record of activism is, by contrast, unimpressive. She used to be a Republican corporate lawyer, and while I absolutely respect that someone can change their mind about politics, and I applaud her for doing so, it worries me that what changed her mind wasn’t the Iran-Contra scandal, or the AIDS crisis, or the brutal crushing of the labor movement. It was the realization that Republicans were doing capitalism wrong. I can’t exactly argue with that (show me a Republican politician who truly supports a free market and I’ll eat my beret*), but it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

*This is a joke. I do not have a beret.

5. Warren’s a capitalist; Sanders is a democratic socialist, and I think the difference is important. Warren supports a wealth tax, and she wants everyone to have healthcare, and I appreciate that she has the guts to talk about those things on national television, but at the end of the day, she’s a proud capitalist who believes the system needs to be corrected, not overhauled.

Sanders is a self-professed democratic socialist, and has built a popular movement around that label. And honestly, I’m not too worried about redbaiting. Yes, it’s a common Republican tactic, but the sentiment of “yes I would vote for Democrats but not for Socialist democrats” is a rare one, if it exists at all. And if it works against any of the primary candidates, it’ll work against all of them. They used anti-Commmunist rhetoric against Obama, for goodness’ sake. Look how much of an advocate for the working class he turned out to be.

Courting the centrist vote is a waste of time. Tiptoeing around conservatives alienates left-wingers and doesn’t actually sway Republicans. It’s a bad move strategically, in that it makes us look like cowards, and morally, because it means not getting very important things done.

Sanders doesn’t want to play the game better. He wants to start a whole new game. Warren’s economics platform seems to boil down to “50s but less racist,” and while that sounds nice, it’s just not possible. We can’t go back there - we have automation now, not to mention a global economy the likes of which we barely dreamed of in the 1950s, and it’s not realistic to try to make that happen again. We need something new.

6. People over party. In a lot of ways, Warren reminds me of the best parts of The West Wing. I like that show, but it was a comforting fantasy - a vision of what the Democratic Party could have been like with a little more gumption and a lot more luck. It never happened because the Democratic party and politics aren’t like that in real life. I have confidence in Sanders because his loyalty isn’t to the Democratic Party. It’s to the American people. He’s proved that over and over again over the course of his political career.

7. Bernie is an organizer. The “not me - us” slogan is very telling. Democracy is participatory. We don’t just need a candidate with a plan to fix everything. We need a candidate with a plan who acknowledges that the people hold the real power. We need a candidate who respects the will of the people and inspires them to get involved. We can’t win this election and stop thinking about politics. We never get to stop thinking about politics. We need someone who can inspire people to keep fighting.

The heart attack was a big deal, but the truth is, it’s never been about Bernie as an individual. His immediate reaction after getting out of the hospital was “I’m lucky to have healthcare; everyone should have healthcare; let’s get back to work.” That, more than anything, has given me the confidence that Bernie wants his policies to last long after he’s gone.

Also, people regularly have heart attacks and live another several decades. This is *literally* why we have vice presidents. If Sanders can get elected and pick a good VP and a cabinet (plus, you know, fill any Supreme Court vacancies that happen to arise over his tenure), his health won’t matter as much, because we don’t need a messiah right now. We need a resurgence of participatory democracy. We need more AOCs to take the stage. We need young people at the polls, not just in 2020, but beyond that.

8. I don’t like to talk about electability for a couple of reasons. One: centrists love to bring it up, usually in the service of talking about how policies they have zero stake in will never work. Two: Trump was supposed to be unelectable, and we all saw how that turned out.

That said: Warren’s currently polling third, which is not a great place to be. And while I don’t share some people’s cynicism about Warren, I have to agree that her response to Trump’s attacks has not impressed me. I’m confident that if Trump attacks Sanders, Bernie won’t take the bait, because he’s so on-message you can’t get him off-message. Like I said: he had a heart attack and immediately spun it back into the healthcare conversation.

And the polls are clear: head to head, Sanders beats Trump. Warren’s chances are far dicier.

9. And the most important issue, without which nothing else really matters: the climate crisis. I’d love it if we could wait for the country’s ideas to catch up to Sanders’ socialist rhetoric, but the truth is we are running out of time. I’m voting for Sanders because I have two nieces under 5 years old and a nephew who was just born, and I want them to grow up on a habitable planet, and they won’t get a chance to vote on that. I’m doing it because I want to have kids of my own someday, and while I absolutely respect the choice of anyone deciding to reproduce right now, I don’t have the emotional energy to raise a family during an apocalypse. And while I like Warren, and she’s expressed support for a Green New Deal, Sanders is the only candidate I trust to both beat Trump in the general and put his foot down to the DNC and their ilk.

10. Foreign policy!

First of all: guess who else hates American Imperialism? That’s right; it’s Bernie Sanders. Significantly, he has the guts to bring up America’s habit of meddling in Latin America’s democratically elected governments, which is something you pretty much never hear about from pretty much any other candidate.

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/25/18744458/bernie-sanders-endless-wars-foreign-affairs-op-ed

Foreign policy came up a lot during 2016 primary, with Clinton’s supporters trotting out the bizarre argument that a long history of hawkish policies is better than no policies at all. What with all that, I was surprised to learn that Sanders is actually quite well-traveled and has a long history of trying to mend fences between the U.S. and other world powers: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/02/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy/470019/

When it comes to climate change and foreign policy, Sanders acknowledges not only that it requires innovation (let’s not forget his early and vehement support for the Green New Deal), but also international cooperation. From the link below:

“To both Sanders and his supporters around the world, it is impossible to fight climate change without international cooperation. To that end, a group called the Progressive International was announced at a convention last year held by the Sanders Institute, a think tank founded by the presidential contender’s wife and son.

“The network of left-wing politicians and activists hopes to fight against "the global war being waged against workers, against our environment, against democracy, against decency,” according to its website.”

He’s also popular with left-wing leaders around the world, and it’s those kinds of politicians who we need to get us out of the climate crisis.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/04/bernie-sanders-global-popularity-1254929

And finally, to stray briefly into comparison: again, I like Warren, but even so, I like her better domestically than internationally. The progressivism she touts at home comes up short abroad. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already, but I think it’s worth remembering that Warren voted for Trump’s military budget in 2017; Sanders didn’t. She talks a lot about peace, but her history on foreign issues looks pretty similar to that of other centrist democrats. This is a problem not only in terms of American Imperialism, but also because the U.S. military is one of the world’s leading causes of climate change. Her voting history and her cozy relationship with defense contractors have me pretty worried. This article goes into more detail about her history with various foreign powers as well as her general attitudes on American imperialism:

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/05/elizabeth-warren-foreign-policy

We all pretty much knew what we were getting with Clinton. Warren worries me not only because she seems to align with the rest of the party on our endless foreign wars, but because she keeps her support for the military-industrial complex behind a facade of progressive rhetoric that reminds me of the early Obama years. We can’t be let down like that again. Even if we ignore the devastating human cost, the planet doesn’t have time.

Further Reading - obviously I don’t agree with everything in every one of these pieces, but they offer a leftist critique that often goes missing from other, more superficial problems people bring up about Warren.

The polling bases of the primary candidates: https://www.people-press.org/2019/08/16/most-democrats-are-excited-by-several-2020-candidates-not-just-their-top-choice/pp_2019-08-16_2020-democratic-candidates_0-06/?fbclid=IwAR2G8np2q9N4P6DArdI-gPhA5Wp_SYDZPKQDpDhxVZ4YbwnAEmFd65swMOA

An interesting take on Warren’s policies vs Bernie’s movement: https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/elizabeth-warren-policy-bernie-sanders-presidential-primary?fbclid=IwAR14wWjYDNuNMrXN7YjVFFFHXmoMWKpDVqBcbPBlQUUrA354iIyRAbKXG30

An opinion piece on the contrast between them:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-democratic-party-elite-2020-presidential-race?fbclid=IwAR3vA54QveM2cCTxQ2BbVXh_IICgTxweKVBLMRjhSFyyAdspnibJ50seDjY

Another one:

https://forward.com/opinion/432561/the-case-for-bernie-sanders-the-only-real-progressive-in-the-race-sorry/?fbclid=IwAR1vwONZ7azJQcoeo_KYNYiJ8ekzHhJsZ4Ms0UzDHI59j7Q6oio-5uJOGcI

Warren’s political history:

More about that from a different source:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/10/why-criticize-warren?fbclid=IwAR0NTP0cRbSnr-a6HCuxE-4SCJZEqU2EAL1Gnx70FME-9UMBg-xYE5t7g7Y

A prequel to the former (beware - this one’s scathing as heck):

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/09/the-prospect-of-an-elizabeth-warren-nomination-should-be-very-worrying?fbclid=IwAR03d5I5j72s4kQC9wgRSrXnbmWsp_9HUvRWBZwzcfsT9RsZP-lSAX4aPz0

[rjzimmerman]

If you read my posts, you’ve concluded long ago that I’m a firm believer in all things renewable, all things necessary to preserve and enhance biodiversity, all things necessary to restore our wild places. But where I’ve split is process, and time. I’m as fiery pissed off and frightened of republican political leadership today as I was during trump’s four years and years preceding that. For that reason, I prefer that President Biden go bolder than baby steps but not as timid as medium steps, but take as many giant steps as he can to sidewind republicans. That might mean playing a carbon capture game, or pretending an oil field in Alaska is “ok” to drill (but it isn’t and never will be drilled....pragmatic capitalism), to get us where we need to go. That also means we maintain nuclear energy where we have it, and maybe expand it, safely with new technology. It also recognizes that internal combustion engines are not going to poof away and disappear in 2030 or 2035.....people hang on to their vehicles, and the internal combustion ones will need gas to run and oil to keep moving. That’s reality.

I respect and admire the progressive wing, particularly the younger ones. I was eager and impatient and exhausting once too, so I get it. But now I get the value of deliberate plodding, if that’s what we have to do to get there.

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

As President Joe Biden works to enact his plan for cutting greenhouse gases, a long dormant rift among climate action activists is surfacing.

On one side are those who believe that renewable energy—especially solar, wind, and hydroelectricity—will be sufficient to fuel the economy and get the world to zero emissions. On the other side are those who, like the Biden administration, think fossil fuels are likely to have a role in the nation’s energy future, making it important to invest in technology to capture carbon emissions.

This dispute was largely buried in recent years, as progressives and moderates bonded together to oppose President Donald Trump’s wholesale unraveling of environmental protections. But now it threatens to complicate the already difficult job that Biden faces in getting his $2 trillion American Jobs Plan through Congress.

“These are divisions that reflect, I think, on one side an ideological crusade of the far left versus a pragmatic approach by the Biden administration that is focused on what’s politically possible,” said Paul Bledsoe, a strategic consultant for the Progressive Policy Institute who worked on climate change in President Bill Clinton’s White House.

But a series of recent Biden administration decisions have disappointed environmentalists, including  the defense of a huge Trump-approved oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope;, the issuing of Western oil and gas leases sold during Trump’s final days; and the refusal to shut down controversial oil pipelines. And as Biden searched for Republican support in Congress for his climate plan, tensions among environmentalists were running high.

The climate action movement united behind Biden last year after he became the Democratic presumptive nominee. And Biden’s ambitious goals—especially his commitment to put the United States on a path toward 100 percent clean electricity by 2035—came out of a joint task force he established with his chief rival and avatar of the progressive movement, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

But there is fierce disagreement about what “clean electricity” means.

#climate activism #environmental activism

[thepermanentrainpress]

CONCERT REVIEW: BEST COAST W/ MANNEQUIN PUSSY AT VENUE - MARCH 3RD, 2020

Sometimes, bands and fans grow up together. That was the case at Venue on Tuesday evening, when Best Coast made a long-awaited return to Vancouver, playing new material and pulling up crowd-pleasing old favourites. And while Best Coast and openers Mannequin Pussy were ready to put on a show and make the noise, the crowd lived up to the worst Vancouver stereotype of being so unengaged and quiet it was unsettling. Maybe we’re all old now—it seemed the average age of the audience would’ve been around 18 when Best Coast was a fresh and much-buzzed-about band in 2010.

In the five years that they’ve been away, a lot has changed for Bethany Cosentino, the frontperson, who was joined onstage by Bobb Bruno – the other half and lead guitarist of the duo. What hasn’t changed is the personal depth of Cosentino’s lyrics, exploring the ups and downs of her newfound sobriety in their recent release, Always Tomorrow.

As for the openers, in the two and a half years since I last reviewed them Mannequin Pussy has stepped it up. Lead vocalist Marisa Dabice was a punk tour de force when the song called for it, standoffish and provocative and riffing with the audience (a fair few of whom seemed to be there to see them). She challenged the audience to “scream and sing and do all the things you can’t do in the street,” performing as if she was possessed by the devil, pulling up her skirt to reveal a pair of biker shorts with sequined flames on them—spectacular.

Then Best Coast took to the stage and brought their sunny Californian surf rock up North, starting their performance with a pared-back intro to “California Nights” before bursting into an ever-expanding chorus. The mellowed-out Tuesday audience meant some ice needed to be broken, and Cosentino was up to the task as she jammed her way through “Different Light” and “Wreckage” before introducing “The Only Place” – the band’s love song to California (which, Cosentino pointed out, had just voted for Bernie Sanders in the Super Tuesday elections).

Cosentino was golden throughout the evening, in the metaphorical and literal sense with gold boots, a gold guitar, and gold in-ears to match. Additionally, a star of the evening was the fan strategically placed stage left in front of Bruno, the breeze really highlighting his majestic hair as he shredded his way through every song.

As they switched off between the hi-fi tunes from their latest low-fi older tracks, Cosentino and Bruno got a little bit more back from the audience during “Crazy for You,” a fast-paced surf rock kind-of jam that has undoubtedly triggered mosh pits at other shows, but in Vancouver? The head-nodding got a bit more vigorous. It wasn’t the audience they deserved, Cosentino having come into her own as a musician, powering her way through songs vocally, focused on having a good time, lacklustre audience or not.

In another contrast between the new and old material, “Crazy for You” (the titular track from their 2010 release) has lyrics about freaking out while getting high; cleaner, newer cuts from Always Tomorrow, like “Everything Has Changed,” has Cosentino talking about coming into her own away from alcohol, and how much better life is sober. In a sincere moment, she thanked the fans for loving her when she didn’t know how to love herself the past several years, and took the time to introduce the others members of the band.

The last songs of the set were the strongest, Cosentino and Bruno shredding on guitar together in “Feeling Ok” as some more energetic fans pushed their way to the front of the crowd. By the end of the night, the crowd had come up with a tolerable level of energy. For the encore, Cosentino took to the stage by herself to play the iconic opening riffs of “When I’m With You,” the rest of the band joining her midway through it, and remaining for the final song of the night. As Cosentino got an audience member to guess, it was “Boyfriend.” She dove into the classic with vigor, joking that she was “like a drunk mom, but I’m sober” after almost tripping over the drum set, thanking the quiet crowd a little too generously as she left the stage.

Written by: Natalie Dee

#ND #Natalie Dee #PRconcert #Concert Review #Review #Music #Live Music #Timbre Concerts #Best Coast #VENUE #Mannequin Pussy #livemusic #Vancouver #yvr #Show #Show Review #The Always Tomorrow Tour #Bobb Bruno #Bethany Cosentino #Always Tomorrow #California Nights #The Only Place #Crazy for You #Feeling Ok #Everything Has Changed #Different Light #Drunk II #Emotional High #Marisa Dabice #concert

[dgcatanisiri]

I wish these Only Bernie people, the ones who trash Warren for not dropping out sooner or not immediately endorsing Bernie or for possibly endorsing Biden, would realize that it’s genuinely strategic of her, that she’s trying to do the right thing for the cause LONG TERM, not the good optics for right now.

Because, look, I’m 100% here for Bernie now that she’s out of the running. I align with his views FAR more than I do Biden. And, bare minimum, I think Bernie will do better across a stage from Trump - considering how much of politics is presented as a show, Biden is going to flounder against Trump in the presidential debates, because he’s just not a good showman, the debates will be a massacre if he’s the candidate.

BUT, here’s the thing. The president doesn’t MAKE the policy. The president just SIGNS the policy. The important part is not so much getting a progressive PRESIDENT as it is getting a progressive SENATE. Because they will send the bills for the president to sign. If it’s only progressive bills they get, then it’s progressive policies they sign.

So, like endorsing Hillary in 2016, endorsing the one who is going to win the nomination - even if they are “the establishment” - is a tactic that makes sense, because now your foot’s in the door to get a job in their cabinet and argue for “support this cause.” If you even get to be the VP, that gives you pull in the Senate. Hell, maybe you even get the argument that you make a better potential Majority Leader than the current Minority Leader.

Because I said that politics is presented as a show? It’s also in actually a game of give and take. You give a little here to get something there. Triage, in effect. Because... Guys, as a nation, if I continue the medical metaphor, the US is hemorrhaging and dangerously close to flatlining. We NEED to get some immediate action taken. Our Courts have already gotten highjacked, which is going to make everything a struggle.

Bernie’s biggest problem is getting the rest of Washington to play ball with him. He has spent his career being “the Independent,” meaning he has limited party support for his plans. You want to talk “party unity”? Look to your own house before casting stones at others. It’s great to want a revolution, but that’s been the talk for four or five years now, if not longer, and it hasn’t manifested at the polls. I could and have speculate why, of course, but the point is, it’s presently a claim with no teeth. The whole “Feel The Bern” thing has not drastically changed the Washington landscape, which means that anyone there still has to play by the old rules, because that’s the only game being played. The old rules say “party compromises with party for the party’s benefit,” and assumes that what is good for the party is good for the nation.

I don’t like Biden and don’t want to vote for him. But I can see how a narrative of “Biden is best for the party” plays among the House and Senate and trickles outward. If Warren were to endorse him - which, to my knowledge, she is still sitting on that decision - it would likely be in the name of getting some concessions to the progressive cause in his administration. Which, if he does walk away with the nomination, he would actually accept if Warren chooses to back him by choice, rather than because Biden trounced Sanders in delegate count. At this point, he needs her endorsement. If he becomes the nominee, that isn’t necessary.

Politics is and always has been a “game” of choosing lesser evils in the name of making it to tomorrow. It’s about what do you want to try and kill you, a poison with an antidote (regardless of how difficult to obtain) or a bullet to the brain? No sudden and magical third option, just two flavors of suck you have to choose from.

The enemy here is Trump and his party. Again, I would sooner have Sanders than Biden, for a number of reasons. But that doesn’t mean anyone supporting Biden is “the enemy.” Not when Trump getting reelected will make the last four years a warm act for the TRULY unhinged shit.

#dg talks politics